Discover and Manage Shadow IT

Josys can help IT admins conquer shadow IT and reduce SaaS sprawl by leveraging Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 (Azure AD) integration, and Josys Browser Extension. We provide visibility to unmanaged or unapproved apps, as well as their usage to IT administrators.

How it works

Shadow IT Detection (SID) is available to all organizations that have integrated their either integrated Google Workspace with the necessary scopes to read Google audit logs, connected Microsoft 365 (Azure AD) to collect SaaS app data, or enabled Josys browser extension.

The following screen will appear until the apps are discovered and presented:

At present, the information from the Josys Browser extension is collected and analyzed daily. In contrast, data from Google Audit Logs and Azure AD is collected starting 20 days after the integration date.

Note: We present App data for curated SaaS business apps that are part of our ever-growing Josys Cloud App Dictionary.

App Usage information is presented in these sections: Discovered Apps, Managed Apps, and User Profiles.

1. Discovered Apps: All discovered SaaS apps are displayed in the "Discovered Apps" section, along with the application name, category, risk level, status, compliance, accounts, source, and last-used details.

Mouse hover over a Discovered App to view its account-level information and click View Details.

The details include the frequency of app usage and the most recent time the app was used. You can choose to integrate an app or track it going forward based on the options available.

2. Managed Apps: The “Managed Apps” displays usage information for apps that are already integrated. For this, click under Active Account. For example, the screenshot below shows that the Asana app has been integrated with 29 accounts, but only 5 users are discovered to be actively using it based on Google Workspace, Microsoft 365 (Azure AD), and Josys browser extension as the discovery source.

3. User Profiles: The "App Usage” in the User Profiles section will display the usage of all apps that have been provisioned by the IT admin or discovered based on Google Workspace and Josys Browser extension as the discovery source.

FAQs

Q1: What is Shadow IT? 
A: The term "Shadow IT" describes the unauthorized usage of software, SaaS apps, or IT resources by the employees within an organization without the approval or knowledge of the IT department. Data security, compliance, and governance are all at risk.

Q2: How can Josys help detect Shadow IT? 
A: Josys manages and tracks unauthorized app access within the organization and discovers the apps used by using the organization’s login credentials. The app's usage history and activity are fetched from Google Audit Logs by integration with Google Workspace/Microsoft 365 (Azure AD). IT Admin can identify such apps by looking through these logs and using Google Workspace/Microsoft 365 (Azure AD) as a source of discovery for Shadow IT detection. Although usage will be capped at the number of login attempts, which can be precisely counted using the cloud app cookie policy access through Google audit logs will remain accurate.

Q3: Do all of the Google Workspace/Microsoft 365 (Azure AD) instances serve as discovery sources?
A: Yes, every Google Workspace/Microsoft 365 (Azure AD) integration will be taken into account as a source of discovery.

Q4: Once a Discovery source is deployed, how much time does it take for discovered apps to appear?
A: Data collection begins immediately after the Discovery source is deployed, but insights are updated every night.